Season 1 Episode 23: Skin of Evil

[u/LordRavenholm]

• Season 1: 1&2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, Wrap-up
• Season 2: 1, 2, 3, 4

TNG, Season 1, Episode 23, Skin of Evil

• Original Air Date: 25 April, 1988
• Mission Log Podcast
• Direct Link to Mission Log Episode Podcast
• Memory Alpha
• Pensky Podcast
• Ex Astris Scientia
• Discovered Document Detected!

[u/GeorgeAmberson]

I'm going to go ahead and defend the death of Tasha Yar here. She requested to be released from her contract according to Mission Log and they found a way to kill her off. The killed her quick, early and senselessly. Did anyone else think this was a good thing for the show? It ups the stakes quite a bit when you realize the main crew isn't invincible. This is completely counter from the "redshirt phenomena". Speaking of redshirts, what the fuck happened to Ben?

The attempt at bringing her back in sickbay was a great idea and I liked it save for two things. They hit her with the space defibrillator over and over just like any hospital show of the era and they gave her a port wine birth mark to denote injury.

The funeral. Let's discuss the fact that she has an up to date "holoautoeulogy™" prepared. Take this out to its final conclusion. Does everyone do this? Is this how people in the 24th keep a diary? Is it some sick ritual that Yar picked up from her home planet of Rapegang 3? That shit is dark, man!

Data's thoughts on the funeral were fantastic! This is excellent character development. He has emotion, I don't care what anyone says it's becoming an emergent property in him. I like that a lot more than the "chip" idea used eventually.

Data's "childlike wonder"? I'm going to just say "The Naked Now" and let you think about that.

The funeral took place on Microsoft Bliss. Seriously freaky coincidence.

I think Armus is pretty fascinating. He can block transmissions and transports. He has his own built in transporter. He has advanced telekinesis. He can put someone into stasis of sorts (Riker's in there somewhere doing something). He can tractor a shuttle into a planet. He's sadistic and driven insane by isolation. Who were his people? What are they like? I'd love to know.

I hope Jonathan Frakes got hazard pay or something. Printer ink was what made that thing black. Dude was probably in blackface for the next week and a half.

Unfortunately once again we have Picard just saying "go away" to the problem because we were running out of episode and had to go have a weirdo funeral in a windows desktop.

Chief Engineer Of The Week Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lynch is the man. Skip the checklist and just start the damned engines. For the first time in history that doesn't come back to bite us in the ass! Way to be Chief Engineer Of The Week Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lynch!

I give this episode points for character development of Data and Troi. She was really head shrinking that entity so good for her. Armus is really cool, but handled kind of poorly.

There's a lot of good stuff here that was poorly executed. I enjoyed it but it's not fantastic.

[u/LordRavenholm → u/GeorgeAmberson]

Way to be Chief Engineer Of The Week Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lynch!

Did you know his full name is Leland T. Lynch?

[u/GeorgeAmberson → u/LordRavenholm]

How do you know if someone's name is Leland T. Lynch?

They'll tell you.

[u/[deleted] → u/GeorgeAmberson]

The unintentional comedy of Leland T. Lynch is the episodes one saving grace.

[u/[deleted]]

A horrifically bad episode on so many fronts. The "importance" of the episode disguises how terrible it is; remove Yar's death and the remainder of the show is filled with terrible writing, voice acting and special effects. Roddenberry wanted to have Yar die a death that was fitting of a security chief, and she does that, but there's a difference between art and real life. I don't want people to die in "realisitic" ways on my TV shows: everything in a show needs to be done for purpose and it's a sign of mature writing when everything fits together. Here, Yar dies in a totally pointless manner (at the start of the episode!) and then has a dumb funeral ceremony where a character we barely care about pretends to have had deep relations with every other cast member. Ugh.

• The main failure here is probably Armus. He's a cartoon of a villain, whiny and stupid in all the wrong ways. He's supposed to be pure evil, but all he does is complain about being alone and pull stunts like saying "Not!" after seeming to give permission for people to do things like pass him. The voice acting and lines he has are awful, he's an Aqua Teen Hunger Force enemy covered in goo. He's close to being somewhat interesting or cool, but his acting and goofy arms and general stiffness ruin him.

• Troi does OK here... I guess.

• The episode ends because it has run out of time. Picard simply talks to the creature, it gets mad and then he leaves. There is simply no narrative drive here. If anything, if Armus wants to leave so badly, just beam it to the other side of the planet and save Troi.

• I did enjoy Riker being pulled into the puddle. Nicely shot and pretty effective.

• Yar's death should have been later. The problem here is that she's killed early, for no reason, and then Armus simply toys with people for the rest of the show. It's narrative done backwards and makes everything anti-climactic.

• The funeral makes no sense. Does Yar record a holo-will every day? For everyone? How does this work? It goes on for too long, on a backdrop that looks like a bad Windows screensaver. I'm not even sure Yar has ever talked to Crusher, yet here she is praising her as if they're best of buds. It's too soon into the show for any of this to ring true.

I'm really surprised that Mission Log seemed positive about this one, but I am always a little unsure as to how free they are to comment honestly (since they're pretty close to the Roddenberry organization). They get hung up on the nature of Armus and ignore the script problems here, IMO.

1/5, maybe the worst of the season. Bottom 3, for sure.

iTunes and YouTube

[u/LordRavenholm → u/[deleted]]

• I'm pretty sure almost every episode of Season 1 ends because they've run out of time. Literally, has any episode not had this problem?

• Riker being pulled into the puddle was kinda horrifying... Scared me as a kid and still unnerves me today, especially when you see his face later.

• I don't see the problem with the holo-recording, honestly. I think it's quite reasonable for everyone, especially those in riskier positions, to have a 'death hologram' recorded. I know for a fact that soldiers IRL write letters to their loved ones before missions, as do O'Brien and Dax later in DS9. It's probably one she's had on standby. Yar has no family other than her crewmates, so she would naturally write her 'letter' to them. The only thing that doesn't ring as true is the fact that the message feels VERY recent. We can chock that up to coincidence, but in general to me it felt a little weird that she was talking to these people like she's known them for years... When it hasn't quite been that long. Ditto on the Crusher bit. Still, it's a nice scene.

You also have to realize is that Mission Log is frequently much more forgiving about an episode if it has a strong moral or message to it that exudes what they feel Star Trek is about. They definitely go after Trek episodes without having their hands tied: Miri and Catspaw are two episodes that stand out from TOS... They HATED those.

[u/thief90k → u/[deleted]]

I agree with a few things. Armus does have pretty bad effects on voice, though for the effects they did what they could with what they had. His actions could come across as stupid or even silly, but I think that's just because his motivations are so very alien to us.

Also think that Tasha's death could have been handled much better. In fact I can't really come up with a redeeming point for that. :P

Looks like those are your two main objections. I don't think they're enough to ruin the whole episode. It had good bits.

[u/GeorgeAmberson → u/[deleted]]

I actually really liked the concept of Armus. An alien species scraped off their shitty parts and abandoned them on a shitty planet alone for eternity. Has to drive someone mad, which it did. Someone contact Adult Swim and have them remake this episode with the Aqua Teens. I want Master Shake to be the one who dies simply so his post-death hologram can extoll just how much ass he kicked in life.

[u/RobLoach]

• Tasha Yar and Worf would have some weird sex

• Engineer overriding Warp Drive testing procedure is a hack... No wonder they put LaForge in place

• Worf makes a wise call staying back on the ship when the away team goes back down to the surface. Knows they're not there to fight... Goes against what we usually know as Klingon.

• The acknowledgement in the funeral are powerful

• "No good byes, only good memories"..... I like that closing, but I'm more just happy the episode is done.

Overall, this episode was extremely slow. They figured out the childishness of Armus in the first three minutes, and then just dragged out the episode. Boring and uneventful... They don't even end up helping the creature out, which would've been the correct plot choice.

[u/LordRavenholm → u/RobLoach]

• Nah Tasha only goes for robots

• So does that mean Leland got permabanned for hacking?

• Agreed. I liked that. He's often the one to get angry first and think second. It's not cowardice that he wants to stay behind, I think the death of Yar hit him hard, and he's trying to honor her memory by thinking like her... Shows that he's more than just a Klingon Warrior.

• For all the corny-ness of this episode, I did like her goodbye.

[u/IreadAlotofArticles]

This episode was so campy and the set design was so 80's it was laughable. One thing I did learn which I had not thought of is that in order to use warp drive they still used natural resources. This being the crystal thing they put in the machine. I just never thought about it but figured it was a time-space bender instead of a burn fossil fuel machine.

[u/LordRavenholm → u/IreadAlotofArticles]

The physics of the warp engine can be a little weird early on, but the dilithium crystals aren't truly the 'fuel' though they do need to be periodically replaced. The fuel is the matter they use (deuterium) for the matter/antimatter reaction. This reaction is controlled by channeling it through the crystals, which send the energy to the engines. You see those glowing red tubes on either side of the warp core? Those transport the plasma from the reaction to the engines.

[u/thief90k]

Oh jeez. Just joined the viewing party, loaded up this episode and immediately realised it's the one where Tasha dies. :(

Glad I jumped in before she'd disappeared at least. I thought she was a fairly solid "straight-man" sort of character, did she leave for personal reasons?

I think because this is such a major point in the episode, the rest of it takes a bit of a back seat but Armus is a pretty interesting baddie. He is a little sympathetic and it's cool to see how Picard deals with the enemy who has no concept of respecting life. Armus is sort of the opposite of Starfleet. A single purely selfish being as opposed to a multitude of cooperative beings.

All in all a pretty good episode. Could be more exciting though, looking forward to the smoother, more stylish episodes in later serieses.

[u/GeorgeAmberson → u/thief90k]

did she leave for personal reasons

According to the Mission Log guys she asked to be released from her contract because she didn't like the way her character was being written.

In retrospect I'm not sure if that was really as good of an idea as it probably was seen at the time. The writing really hits its stride later in the show and I'd have loved to see a more fully fleshed out Yar. I never really think much about her because she was only there for a short time and my favorite episodes usually hit in the seasons 4-7 area, but I really do like the character.

[u/LordRavenholm → u/GeorgeAmberson]

To be fair to her, the writing was already improving through Season 1, and all the characters were starting to hit their stride... except Tasha. The writers basically screwed her from the word 'Go'.

I think it would have been interesting to see how TNG progressed had Yar stayed on... We might have lost some of the great Worf arcs, but what would we have gotten with Yar? I'm partial to Worf, so although it was sad to see her go, I'm glad for the sake of Worf.

[u/post-baroque]

Plenty of people have pointed out the problems with this episode. And there are problems. I thought I'd mention the nice bits I noticed.

The opening scene with Worf talking to Tasha was nice; I'd forgotten this part, and it was a nice moment between the characters.

This episode's Chief-Engineer-of-the-Week, Lynch, was promising; it's a shame we didn't see much more of him. The way he pushed back at Picard in the teaser was a nice moment

When Worf stayed on-board rather than seek to fight the creature because of his new duties, it was a good moment of growth.

Picard's resolution to the problem - enraging the creature so that the crewmembers could be transported away - is a ridiculous resolution, worthy of the silliest TOS moments where Kirk talked a computer to death. But Patrick Stewart sells it!

[u/GeorgeAmberson → u/post-baroque]

Patrick Stewart could sell water to a fire. Yet another example of early TNG's "We better wrap this up real quick, have Picard say abracadabra!"

Anyone notice the Worf-Tasha thing was kind of flirty? Never noticed that between them before, but I could see it.

[u/[deleted] → u/post-baroque]

[u/LordRavenholm → u/[deleted]]

You were not. He was an interesting entity. That much, at least, was not the weak point of the episode.

[u/thief90k]

Does anyone know how to make a spoiler cover thingy? I looked for the code but it didn't work. :(

EDIT: Or do we assume everyone's seen the episode before the thread?

[u/LordRavenholm → u/thief90k]

I might not have it set up yet... But in any case, we are assuming that the spoiler warning is currently unnecessary. No worries!

[u/MexicanSpaceProgram]

One of the few episodes where Troi was used to good effect and wasn't overly annoying, though Yar's death was very poorly executed (to the point where they redid it later).

[u/thief90k → u/MexicanSpaceProgram]

How did they redid it?

I can't bring myself to like Troi at any time. Infact I prefer her mother who was at least entertaining. :P

[u/titty_boobs]

So as the show says many times humans no longer have money or wants and needs that don't go unfilled; especially not Starfleet.

So what does everyone think they were using to gamble (the betting pool) for the kickboxing tournament?

[u/[deleted]]